The literature on pubic hair removal (PHR) practices primarily focuses on women in Western societies and attributes recent increases in PHR to product marketing, pornography, and pop culture. Here, we explore PHR and retention practices outside the cultural West through content coding of societies in the Human Relations Area Files’ database, eHRAF World Cultures. Thirty-one societies noted distinct PHR or retention practices. Descriptive data on 72 societies provided additional context to the perception of pubic hair and reasons for its removal or retention. Results indicate that women practice PHR more commonly than men cross-culturally and practices are often tied to concerns about hygiene and sexual activity. Findings show that some features of PHR cross-culturally resemble those of the cultural West in which these practices have been best characterized, though these practices cannot be attributed to the same suite of factors such as exposure to pornography or product marketing. We interpret these findings within cross-cultural and evolutionary perspectives.

中文翻译：

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跨文化视角下的阴毛去除实践

关于阴毛去除 (PHR) 实践的文献主要关注西方社会的女性，并将最近 PHR 的增加归因于产品营销、色情和流行文化。在这里，我们通过人际关系领域文件数据库 eHRAF World Cultures 中社会的内容编码来探索西方文化之外的 PHR 和保留实践。31 个协会指出了不同的 PHR 或保留做法。72 个社会的描述性数据为对阴毛的看法及其去除或保留原因提供了额外的背景信息。结果表明，在跨文化方面，女性练习 PHR 的频率高于男性，而且练习通常与卫生和性活动有关。调查结果表明，PHR 的某些特征在跨文化方面类似于西方文化的特征，这些实践在这些实践中得到了最好的表征，尽管这些实践不能归因于同一组因素，例如接触色情或产品营销。我们从跨文化和进化的角度解释这些发现。